1,500 Indian Farmers Commit Mass Suicide: Why We Are Complicit in these Deaths

Crop failure may have pushed farmers over the edge, but American companies have been leading them to the cliff for years.

The headline has been hard to ignore. Across the world press, news media have announced that over 1,500 farmers in the Indian state of Chattisgarh committed suicide. The motive has been blamed on farmers being crippled by overwhelming debt in the face of crop failure.

The UK Independent reported:

The agricultural state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels.

"The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago," Shatrughan Sahu, a villager in one of the districts, told Down To Earth magazine.

"Most of the farmers here are indebted and only God can save the ones who do not have a bore well."

While many may have been shocked by these deaths, farmer suicides in India, and increasingly across the world, are not new.

In the last ten years, the problem has been reaching epidemic proportions. In one region of India alone 1,300 cotton farmers took their own lives in 2006, but the culprit cannot rest solely on a falling water table.

As the Independent article continues:

Bharatendu Prakash, from the Organic Farming Association of India, told the Press Association: "Farmers' suicides are increasing due to a vicious circle created by money lenders. They lure farmers to take money but when the crops fail, they are left with no option other than death."

But there's more to the story than that. Farmer suicides can be attributed to, "something far more modern and sinister: genetically modified crops," the UK's Daily Mail reports.

Shankara, like millions of other Indian farmers, had been promised previously unheard of harvests and income if he switched from farming with traditional seeds to planting GM seeds instead.

Beguiled by the promise of future riches, he borrowed money in order to buy the GM seeds. But when the harvests failed, he was left with spiraling debts -- and no income.

So Shankara became one of an estimated 125,000 farmers to take their own life as a result of the ruthless drive to use India as a testing ground for genetically modified crops.

And no company has been as notorious in the business as the U.S. agra-giant Monsanto. As Nancy Scola explained in a piece for AlterNet:

Here's the way it works in India. In the central region of Vidarbha, for example, Monsanto salesmen travel from village to village touting the tremendous, game-changing benefits of Bt cotton, Monsanto's genetically modified seed sold in India under the Bollgard® label. The salesmen tell farmers of the amazing yields other Vidarbha growers have enjoyed while using their products, plastering villages with posters detailing "True Stories of Farmers Who Have Sown Bt Cotton." Old-fashioned cotton seeds pale in comparison to Monsanto's patented wonder seeds, say the salesmen, as much as an average old steer is humbled by a fine Jersey cow.

Part of the trick to Bt cotton's remarkable promise, say the salesmen, is that Bollgard® was genetically engineered in the lab to contain bacillus thuringiensis, a bacterium that the company claims drastically reduces the need for pesticides. When pesticides are needed, Bt cotton plants are Roundup® Ready -- a Monsanto designation meaning that the plants can be drowned in the company's signature herbicide, none the worse for wear. (Roundup® mercilessly kills nonengineered plants.)

Sounds great, right? The catch is that Bollgard® and Roundup® cost real money. And so Vidarbha's farmers, somewhat desperate to grow the anemic profit margin that comes with raising cotton in that dry and dusty region, have rushed to both banks and local moneylenders to secure the cash needed to get on board with Monsanto. Of a $3,000 bank loan a Vidarbha farmer might take out, as much as half might go to purchasing a growing season's worth of Bt seeds.

And the same goes the next season, and the next season after that. In traditional agricultural, farmers can recycle seeds from one harvest to plant the next, or swap seeds with their neighbors at little or no cost. But when it comes to engineered seeds like Bt cotton, Monsanto owns the tiny speck of intellectual property inside each hull, and thus controls the patent. And a farmer wishing to reuse seeds from a Monsanto plant must pay to relicense them from the company each and every growing season.

The cycle of debt continues into a downward spiral. And to be sure, water problems are adding to the crisis. In this most recent instance dam construction nearby was a significant contributor. While changes in water availability may be the jumping point for some farmers in India, it has been the globalization model of agriculture hyped by companies like Monsanto and Cargill that have led farmers to the cliff in the first place.

As renown physicist and anti-globalization activist Vandana Shiva (who has also fought against big dam construction) said in an interview with Democracy Now! in 2006:

A few weeks ago, I was in Punjab. 2,800 widows of farmer suicides who have lost their land, are having to bring up children as landless workers on others' land. And yet, the system does not respond to it, because there's only one response: get Monsanto out of the seed sector--they are part of this genocide -- and ensure WTO rules are not bringing down the prices of agricultural produce in the United States, in Canada, in India, and allow trade to be honest. I don't think we need to talk about free trade and fair trade. We need to talk about honest trade. Today's trade system, especially in agriculture, is dishonest, and dishonesty has become a war against farmers. It's become a genocide.

The recent mass suicide in India should be a wake up call to the rest of the world. The industrial agriculture model is literally killing our farmers.

Thu Apr 23, 2009 4:33 pm

sick_transit

Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 502
Location: Los Angeles, CA

That is very unsettling. It depresses me to think that this probably won't even make CNN or NBC news headlines but a story on how a dog signed up for facebook probably will.

We need to be more alert and aware of what's going on there, it's a travesty.

"According to the National Crime Records Bureau of India, 182,936 Indian farmers have committed suicide between 1997 -2007. It estimates 46 Indian farmers kill themselves every day - that is, roughly one suicide every 30 minutes. An estimated 16,625 farmers across India killed themselves in 2007, the last year that was reported. The numbers are horrifying, and they indicate the sense of despair that the poorest people in the world are facing today."

A lot of bad shit is gonna happen in the next 10 or so years... very sad.

Thu Apr 23, 2009 5:08 pm

BandiniWIZARD APPRENTICE

Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 4669
Location: jerk city

I think the headline, the story and the title of this thread are wrong in calling this a "mass suicide." I dont think this reporter knows what a mass suicide is.

Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:41 pm

Sage FrancisSelf Fighteous

Joined: 30 Jun 2002
Posts: 21737

Yeah, that's true.

Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:52 pm

icarus502kung-pwn master

Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 11291
Location: ann arbor

Bandini wrote: I think the headline, the story and the title of this thread are wrong in calling this a "mass suicide." I dont think this reporter knows what a mass suicide is.

I was just saying that. This is the most misleading headline I've encountered in a long time. I read this over and over just to find the actual "mass suicide" in it. Take the word "mass" out of it and it's still a very compelling story, even if the suicides recorded (apparently) took place over many years.

Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:17 pm

AdamBomb

Joined: 05 Mar 2004
Posts: 3183
Location: Louisiana

Yeah, the "mass suicide" confused me, too. I was thinking they all drank the Kool-Aid.

Nonetheless, this is a tragic situation and sounds like a modern form of imperialism. Why couldn't they have just engineering better seeds and not put that proprietary pesticide element in there? Greedy bastards. By the way, I'm curious what the consequence is for not paying your debts in India. Could you be imprisoned...or is there a bankruptcy-like option?

Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:32 pm

knowrites

Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 2060

i had heard their crops were doing pretty bad this year.. but i really didn't think they were doing 1500 suicides bad..

Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:55 pm

neveragainlikesheep

Joined: 22 May 2008
Posts: 2536
Location: TKO from Tokyo

sick_transit wrote: That is very unsettling. It depresses me to think that this probably won't even make CNN or NBC news headlines but a story on how a dog signed up for facebook probably will.

We need to be more alert and aware of what's going on there, it's a travesty.

This is already from the previous news cycle. It's already been pasted over, even before you read it.

Depressing indeed.

Thu Apr 23, 2009 9:23 pm

PatrickBateman

Joined: 09 Aug 2003
Posts: 2278
Location: Philadelphia, PA

"The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago," ????

Yea, I could half buy the modified foods having something to do with causing chemical imbalances in the farmers. So many deaths. There're lessons to be learned from a failed harvest and a delinquent loan, but come on. There are family's involved for fuck's sake. The seeds, I blame the seeds. Leave the seeds alone! Water! Light! Dirt! That's it.